Understated Rookie Fuels Bengals' Makeover

By JUDY BATTISTA

Published: November 13, 2011

CORRECTION APPENDED

CINCINNATI -- The wish list was prepared in March: a receiver, a quarterback, cornerbacks, linebackers, interior offensive linemen. After a season with only four victories and with a franchise quarterback intent on never returning, Coach Marvin Lewis could not be shy about all the parts the Cincinnati Bengals had to replace. It had been his job to relay to the front office that Carson Palmer would not play for them again, and now it was the Bengals' job to find Palmer's replacement.

On a scouting trip to Fort Worth on Good Friday, they did. There, on the football field at Texas Christian, Bengals coaches worked with Andy Dalton, running parts of the Bengals' offense with him and some of his college teammates. The lockout was on, and with off-season programs scuttled, the Bengals were conducting pre-emptive minicamps of a sort, spending extra time installing a new offense with some of the quarterbacks they hoped would be available in the draft.

Ryan Mallett, a big talent with big off-the-field questions who eventually went to the New England Patriots in the third round, had impressed the Bengals' owner, Mike Brown. But in repeated visits with Dalton, the coaches saw something the Bengals badly needed for a team that had a good, veteran defense but a young, brand-new offense: steadiness.

Dalton does not have the strongest arm or the most statuesque build, and some scouts still wonder if he will be able to throw deep passes into the wind during the winter. He is quiet and unassuming. His biggest boosters acknowledge he lacks the charisma that draws cameras. Even his red hair caused some to wonder about him; Dalton said he thought that had to be a joke, although he had been told once by a doctor that redheads bleed more.

But Dalton is smart, makes quick decisions, is accurate and can read a defense -- a perfect fit for the West Coast offense the Bengals and their new offensive coordinator, Jay Gruden, run. And after leading his high school team in Katy, Tex., to the state final as a senior, and going 42-7 as a starter in college, he has proved to be unflappable. After a season in which Lewis admitted the Bengals were scorched by their misguided attempt to use big names like Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens to win games -- ''If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger,'' he said -- that was the antidote the Bengals sought.

''We spent more time with Andy than anybody,'' Lewis said. ''Andy knew as much about us as anybody did and what we were going to do offensively. It made you hold your breath. It just seemed like he got it. Like he really clicked. He got the ball in and out of his hands better than anybody.''

Apparently so. The Bengals are 6-2 and, for now, the top seed in the A.F.C. They are in the midst of their first five-game winning streak since 1988, when Boomer Esiason led them to the A.F.C. championship. Dalton has already engineered three fourth-quarter comebacks, and leads all rookie quarterbacks in completion percentage at 61.5 percent. Most improbably, on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Bengals begin a four-week crucible of division games that could make them one of the most unlikely playoff teams of the season.

''I can't believe they're playing a meaningful game against the Steelers in the middle of the season,'' Esiason said.

In recent years, the Bengals have been better known for disarray (plenty) than division titles (two since 2005). Players have been arrested and suspended, injured and jettisoned. They have demanded trades, threatened retirement and generally caused a scene. The history of the Bengals is so replete with missteps that when Palmer, a former Heisman Trophy winner, was drafted by the team in 2003, Esiason presented him with a helmet and said, ''Welcome to our dysfunctional family.''

The Bengals have been down so long that even a rebirth did not offer much hope. Just before this season began, Esiason jokingly welcomed Andrew Luck -- the presumed top pick in next year's draft, which would go to the worst N.F.L. team this season -- to that same family.

''I don't know all of the history,'' Dalton said. ''I know there have been some tough times here. When we played the Bills, someone told me, 'You just came off a 10-game losing streak.' I didn't even know about it. Same thing with the Colts -- it's not our focus.''

He continued: ''I think a lot of people wanted to make excuses for us: playing a rookie quarterback, Carson Palmer not back. That hasn't fazed us. The most we heard from the Carson Palmer situation was people asking questions about it. It seemed like everybody had moved on. We're a young team and we're hungry.''

The business of burying history began in the off-season. Members of the offense got together several times -- in California and in Cincinnati -- to work out, with Dalton leading the way because he knew more of the offense than anybody. There was a lot of football and almost as much golf. When the players were in Cincinnati, left tackle Andrew Whitworth had five of those who did not yet have homes stay at his for two weeks.

The result was that players grew close without the influence of coaches, and when training camps did open in late July, there was little of the usual friction between rookies and veterans.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: An article last Sunday about the impressive rookie season of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton misstated, in some editions, the year one of his predecessors, Carson Palmer, was drafted by the team. It was 2003, not 2004.